Igbo people in the context of "Ikenga"

Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of 923,769 square kilometres (356,669 sq mi). With a population of more than 236 million, it is the most populous country in Africa, and the world's sixth-most populous country. Nigeria borders Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where its capital, Abuja, is located. The largest city in Nigeria by population is Lagos, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world and the largest in Africa.

Nigeria has been home to several indigenous material cultures, pre-colonial states and kingdoms since the second millennium BC. The Nok culture, c. 1500 BC, marks one of the earliest known civilisations in the region. The Hausa Kingdoms inhabited the north, with the Edo Kingdom of Benin in the south, Igbo Kingdom of Nri in the southeast and in the southwest, the Oyo Empire. The present day territory of Nigeria was home to a vast array of city-states. In the early 19th century the Fula jihads culminated in the Sokoto Caliphate. The modern state originated with British colonialization in the 19th century, taking its present territorial shape with the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and the Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914. The British set up administrative and legal structures and incorporated traditional monarchs as a form of indirect rule. Nigeria became a formally independent federation on 1 October 1960. It experienced a civil war from 1967 to 1970, followed by a succession of military dictatorships and democratically elected civilian governments until achieving a stable government in the 1999 Nigerian presidential election.

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the sixth most populous in the world. Nigeria is also one of the most densely populated countries in Africa, with approximately 218.5 million people in an area of 923,768 km (356,669 sq mi).

54.3% of Nigerians are urban dwellers, with the annual rate of urbanisation being estimated at 3.92%. Nigeria is home to 371 ethnic groups speaking over 500 languages and the variety of customs and traditions among them gives the country great cultural diversity. The three largest ethnic groups, namely the Hausas, Yorubas, and Igbos constitute more than 60% of the population. The Ijaw, Efik, Ibibio, Annang, Ogoni, Tiv, Urhobo-Isoko, Edo and Itsekiri are some of the other sizeable ethnic groups. Over 1.2 million people living in Nigeria (0.5% of its total population, or 1 in every 200 people living in Nigeria) are from a continent other than Africa. There are 100,000 people from the United States, 75,000 are from Lebanon, 60,000 are from China and 16,000 are from the United Kingdom.

Igbo (English: /ˈiːboʊ/ EE-boh, US also /ˈɪɡboʊ/ IG-boh; Standard Igbo: Ásụ̀sụ́ Ìgbò [ásʊ̀sʊ̀ ìɡ͡bò] ) is the principal native language cluster of the Igbo people, an ethnicity in the Southeastern part of Nigeria.

Igbo languages are spoken by a total of 31 million people. The number of Igboid languages depends on how one classifies a language versus a dialect, so there could be around 35 different Igbo languages. The core Igbo cluster, or Igbo proper, is generally thought to be one language but there is limited mutual intelligibility between the different groupings (north, west, south and east). A standard literary language termed 'Igbo izugbe' (meaning "general igbo") was generically developed and later adopted around 1972, with its core foundation based on the Orlu (Isu dialects), Anambra (Awka dialects) and Umuahia (Ohuhu dialects), omitting the nasalization and aspiration of those varieties.

The Nigerian Civil War (6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970), also known as the Biafran War, Nigeria-Biafra War, or Biafra War, was an armed conflict fought between Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, a secessionist state which had declared its independence from Nigeria in 1967. During the war years, Field Marshal Gowon served as the head of state of Nigeria, while Biafra was led by Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka "Emeka" Odumegwu Ojukwu. The conflict emerged from political, ethnic, cultural, and religious tensions that preceded the United Kingdom's formal decolonisation of Nigeria from 1960 to 1963. Immediate causes of the war in 1966 included a military coup, a counter-coup, and anti-Igbo pogroms in the Northern Region. As a consequence of these pogroms, alongside the mass exodus of surviving Igbos from the Northern Region to the Igbo homelands in the Eastern Region, the leadership of the Eastern Region concluded that the Nigerian federal government was either unwilling or unable to guarantee them an adequate protection, therefore, the only remaining solution seemed to be to secure their compatriots' security by establishing a sovereign and independent country of Biafra.

Within a year, Nigerian government troops surrounded Biafra, while capturing coastal oil facilities and the city of Port Harcourt. In the aftermath of the Nigerian military's encirclement of the major part of Biafra, a blockade was imposed as a deliberate policy during the ensuing stalemate, which led to the mass starvation of Biafran civilians. During the 2+1⁄2 years of the war, there were approximately 100,000 overall military casualties, while between 500,000 and 2 million Biafran civilians died of starvation.

The archaeology of Igbo-Ukwu is the study of an archaeological site located in a town of the same name: Igbo-Ukwu, an Igbo town in Anambra State in southeastern Nigeria. As a result of these findings, three excavation areas at Igbo-Ukwu were opened in 1959 and 1964 by Charles Thurstan Shaw: Igbo Richard, Igbo Isaiah, and Igbo Jonah. Excavations revealed more than 700 high quality artifacts of copper, bronze and iron, as well as about 165,000 glass, carnelian and stone beads, pottery, textiles and ivory beads, cups, and horns. The bronzes include numerous ritual vessels, pendants, crowns, breastplates, staff ornaments, swords, and fly-whisk handles.

Nigeria is a very ethnically diverse country with 371 ethnic groups, the largest of which are the Hausa, Yoruba and the Igbo. Nigeria has one official language which is English, as a result of the British colonial rule over the nation. However, it is not spoken as a first language in much of the country because of the massive linguistic diversity in the country. Because of this, Nigeria stands out as one of the world's most linguistically diverse nations, with over 500 languages spoken among its 223 million people (2023 estimate), a testament to its rich ethnic heritage. Some of the popular languages spoken in Nigeria are listed as follows: Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Ijaw, Ibibio, Edo, Fulfude, and Tiv to name a few.

Traditional African masks are worn in ceremonies and rituals across West, Central, and Southern Africa. They are used in events such as harvest celebrations, funerals, rites of passage, weddings and coronations. Some societies also use masks to resolve disputes and conflicts.

For example, members of the masquerade cult and Uma-Ada fraternity facilitate social justice and reconciliation processes among Igbo communities in Eastern Nigeria through masquerade performances. Mende and Vai women of the Sande society in Sierra Leone don the Sowei mask during rites of passage, specifically initiation ceremonies for young girls. The Plank Mask (Nwantantay) among the Bobo, Bwa, and Mossi people of Burkina Faso makes an appearance during public events such as funerals and agricultural festivals.

The Isu people// are the largest group of the Igbo people of Nigeria.Isuama, in which the purest Igbo is said to be spoken, is to be found the heart of the Igbo nationality; consequently it is quite reasonable to look among its people for the original fountain-head from which all the other clans have sprung. This inference too is supported not only by the purity of the language, but by this right of dispensing or rather of confer-ring royalty which is undoubtedly the prerogative of the Nri or N'shi people.In the pre-colonial era, the Igbo people were protected from external invasion by the dense forests of the region, which also encouraged diversity. Thus as warriors the neighboring Oratta (Uratta) people (Owerri people) looked down on the Isu people, who were traders.

Isuama is the name given to the south-central part of Igboland, which was a major source of slaves during the period of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.The name has been carried across the Atlantic, where it is found in the name of Cuban society Carabali Isuama.This name pays homage to the group's ancestry in the Isuama area of Igboland to the north of the Kalabari Ijaw people.At one time the Isuama language was spoken in Cuba, but eventually it and other Cross River languages was displaced by the standard Abakua language called Brikamo.